[olpc-help] Activities no longer load, including Terminal; Flash failed

[finalist]

gia wrote:
> I am having a problem that sounds similar to the original problem in this post. Pardon me if I sound frantic, but the journal is gone.  I attempted to update to 653 through the terminal, and it seemed to going ok, but when I rebooted I lost control of the keyboard and the journal is gone (sometimes). I downloaded the files fs.zip and os653.img and copied them to a usb stick but I keep getting error messages when I startup with the usb stick in. The stick DOES mount in the journal. I have tried several different times to install with no success.The last time I tried to install I thought it was working because it was running through all these commands and "OK" kept popping up, but when it finally booted, everything was the same and it's still broken.HELP! I've ruined my daughter's xo!


Hi gia!  No need to freak out  :)  -- you've done alright so far, actually.

My daughter's xo was actually further gone than what you describe - I couldn't get to either the journal or Terminal, but now all is restored (to initial state, that is) and the girl's off and running again!

You have both of the files that you need to re-flash the bios - they're the ones that I used this afternoon to restore ours.  There is a link (which I'll post in a moment) that describes what you need, but here's the brief:
With the xo turned off, insert the stick - (I used the lone port on the left)
Make sure it's plugged in; always a good idea when messing with system issues
Hold down all 4 game buttons on the right, then hit the (|) power button
Release the game keys when it tells you to
I had to try a couple of USB keys before it worked; as described elsewhere, an unused key is best, as other files only confuse the issue.
The screen will display a (white, in my case) grid of squares indicating memory blocks - on my unsuccessful attempts, they did not change, and an error message was displayed.  On my final ('cause it worked) attempt, they progressed in green until the new BIOS was in place.  There was one red block, which seemed to indicate that there was a bad/corrupted memory address that may have contributed to the original problem.

Let us know how it goes!